A shooting took place during the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas late Sunday night (Oct. 1). At least 59 people are dead and at least 527 were injured; the incident is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

CNN reports that a single shooter, who has been identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nev., was positioned in a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and shooting from above the crowd, gathered outside Mandalay at Las Vegas Village. Police believe he killed himself before they entered his hotel room, and that he legally purchased the firearms with which he committed the massacre.

Paddock was not known to police, and police do not believe, at this point, that Paddock had links to terrorist groups; they have, however, found additional weapons and ammunition both in his hotel room and at his home. Police are also speaking with another person of interest, named Marilou Danley; she was Paddock's girlfriend and was out of the country when the shooting occurred.

"We were close to the stages -- about six rows from the front on the lefthand side, and [Aldean] was just performing," concert attendee Rachel Dekerf describes to CNN. "The gunshots lasted for 10-15 minutes. It didn't stop. We just ran for our lives."

Dekerf's sister, Monique Dumas, who attended with Dekerf, adds, "The band was rushed off the stage, the floodlights came on the crowd, and you see on the right hand of the stage the person who was injured, so they're calling for medics, calling for security, then there was gunfire again."

"It seemed there was a pause in the gunfire, and the people in the yellow shirts were telling the people to 'go, go, go, go'" she adds. "The gunfire never ended. It seemed like it went on and on and on."